IRAN : The
Mantle of the Prophet, or How to become an Ayatollah

Probably
the best introduction to the Iran of the ayatollahs,
Roy Mottahedehs book is not easy reading, even
for the intelligent general reader of Middle east
history whom it is aimed at.

It starts as the simple biography
of Ali Hashemi, the son of a mullah. There are some
beautiful pages on the daily life of a small boy,
divided between school, bazar, mosque and home, in
the provincial city of Qom in the late 1940s.

But as the boy grows up and leaves
school for the Faiziyeh madreseh (islamic college),
the book becomes more complex. It develops on several
intertwined levels. At one level, it is a chronicle
of the political events which led from the constitutional
crisis of 1906, through the years of Mossadeqs
nationalist government (1951-53), to the Islamic revolution
of 1979.

At another level, it is a history
of Iranian culture and society in the 20th century.
It is also a comprehensive panorama of Shia thought,
from the death of Hussain, the prophets grandson,
to the rise of Khomeini.

Mottahedeh skilfully switches
back and forth between the daily life of Ali Hashemi
and his historical context. One chapter, for example,
deals at length with the madreseh curriculum, giving
the non-Iranian reader a chance to grasp what is taught
at the Faiziyeh, to feel he is actually there.

Mottahedeh then introduces a chapter
on the formal structure of Shia theology. This he
makes more palatable by telling the story of Avicenna,
who integrated Aristotelian methods into Islamic thought.

The
most formidable factor of change was the introduction
of modern secular education. Mottahedeh describes
the life of the educationalist Isa Sadiq, who helped
Reza Shah build a modern country in the second quarter
of the century. He portrays the uneasy relationship
between intellectuals and the first Pahlavi Shah.

The revival of the "jurisconsult"
school at the end of the 18th century, the slow creation
of a religious hierarchy in the 19th under the Qajars,
the line of succession of the Marja-e-Taqlid (mullahs
who are "sources of imitation") in the 20th
-- it is all there, together with an account of the
relationship between the two Pahlavi Shahs and the
Shiite leadership, until the collision between the
Shah and Khomeini in 1963, leading to the latters
imprisonment and exile.

In 1971 Ali Hashemi is arrested
by Savak, the Shahs secret police. In jail he
recognises the voice of his friend Parviz, the bakers
son with whom he went to school in Qom. It is the
year in which armed resistance to the regime begins.

After
400 densely-written pages, the author poses his final
question. What was it that they had in common, the
students of secular educationalists like Isa Sadiq
and the students of religious masters, the Shariatis,
the Taleghanis, the Shariat-Madaris?

The answer was Islam, which the
more secular Iranians rediscovered through the informal
discussion groups -- the dowrehs and hayats -- which
were the one form of organisation the Shah could not
suppress.

When you turn the last page of
this unique book, built like a puzzle which makes
sense only when you fit in the last piece, you know
you must read it a second time, perhaps a third time,
to understand the world of Ali Hashemi, the boy from
Qom who became an ayatollah.